EIB and ABN AMRO provide EUR 150 million to finance green shipping

The European Investment Bank and ABN AMRO sign an agreement today to support investments for greening the European shipping fleet. This framework is the first with a financial institution in the Netherlands.

The framework guarantee agreement will make that sure promoters of green projects in the maritime transport sector can benefit from favourable financial terms as a result of the EIB's AAA rating. The facility is open for both retrofitting of existing shipping as well as for projects that envisage the construction of new vessels with a green innovation aspect and applies to both inland shipping and seagoing operators.

“The Bank received a clear signal from the market that there was a financing gap for the greening of shipping fleets.” said EIB vice-president Pim van Ballekom. “By allowing the EIB to take more risk, the Investment Plan for Europe enabled us to create a new instrument to support shipping companies in complying with the European sustainability standards. This is the second agreement under a EUR 750 million EFSI Green Shipping Guarantee Programme, which was set up after numerous discussions with Dutch counterparts from the public and private sector. We are really looking to ship owners to make use of it so that we can implement it in other countries as well.”

Daphne de Kluis, CEO Commercial Clients ABN AMRO adds: “We are very happy we can support the Juncker plan through this initiative. The EIB facility is an extra stimulus for ABN AMRO to stimulate our shipping clients to look for sustainable solutions. It fits perfectly with our other efforts to promote sustainable solutions in this important sector.”

Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc: "Financing the transition to more sustainable transport systems and networks requires a commitment to invest. Today's agreement demonstrates that the Investment Plan can play an important role in mobilising private finance to support this transition."

Background information

The programme is meant for projects that will improve the environmental performance of transport vessels in terms of diminishing the emission of pollutants as well as increasing fuel efficiency. Projects should be proposed to ABN AMRO and will be subject to the eligibility and risk acceptance criteria.

The agreement is supported by the Connecting Europe Facility and was made possible by the European Fund for Strategic Investments, central pillar of the Juncker Commission’s Investment Plan for Europe.

The European Investment Bank is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals. Transport projects accounted for EUR 12.5 Bln of the EIB’s investments over 2016.

The Investment Plan for Europe, the so-called Juncker Plan, is one of the European Commission's top priorities. It focuses on boosting investments to create jobs and growth by making smarter use of new and existing financial resources, removing obstacles to investment and providing visibility and technical assistance to investment projects.

The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) is the central pillar of the Juncker Plan. It provides a first loss guarantee, allowing the EIB to invest in more, often riskier, projects. The EFSI is already showing concrete results. The projects and agreements approved for financing under the EFSI so far are expected to mobilise more than EUR 183 billion in investments and support over 425,000 SMEs across all 28 Member States.

Under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), EUR 24.05 billion is made available from the EU's 2014-2020 budget to co-fund priority transport projects in the EU Member States.